4 Little Words

The answer to this question is largely determined by another question…

WHERE IS YOUR FOCUS ? THE PAST OR THE FUTURE ?

We have been conditioned to believe that the past determines the future, when it is actually the future that determines the present. How you see the future, not how you are bound by the past, is much more important.

What we believe the future will be and imagining into that future creates the vitality of the present. It is the source of creativity in the present and it is the essence of hope, possibility, and vitality.

We usually do not spend a great deal of time thinking about the future after we are 10 or 12, but we do have a very powerful, vague idea of how it is going to be. It is taking that vague notion of the future and filling it with dreams, goals, and the power of the imagination that changes our mind-set from being fixed to being open and available for growth.

Just as an exercise, imagine six impossible things before breakfast. You will be using parts of your brain that are vital to the overall health of your brain.

Read this one more time: It is the future that determines the present. It is your vague, almost unconscious notion of the future that is doing a great big job on you, your mood, your apprehensions, and your daily zest, vitality and creativity.

Ordinary mental life is chock-full of this activity. Mind wandering, day-dreaming and fantasy are the least of it. In an ordinary conversation, for example, the mind is continually “running ahead” of present stimuli, exploring possibilities for the meaning of the other’s remarks or for one’s own next response.

The left frontal lobe of your brain, just to name one part, is about visioning and direction. It works in tandem with the right hemisphere to get the “whole picture” and then to make choices about future directions.

If you don’t use this part of your brain for this purpose of visioning, it goes over and over the sorting process of what is simply there already –round and round and round. If you don’t use this part of your brain, you dwell on the mundane, what the neighbors are doing, and you talk more about other people than you talk about ideas.

What do you think your future will bring ? What are you expecting ? What is most influencing your future, the evening news report and the stock exchange numbers, the size of your bank account, or the size of your imagination ?

No invention, no real progress was ever brought to fruition without imaging some greater part of the process. The point of change is when we get off the problem and say, “what’s next ?” The Mind will answer back from the open empty part, not the problem-filled focus.

You have an idea of the future, and it is much more significant than your past. Unearthing your past will not engage your future. Transformational moments happen when we begin to imagine possibilities. If you have to dig up your past to get to the place where you can do that, then do it. But if you don’t, just consider this: what is possible ?